Welcome to this gathering to work with the energy flow of the Gemini full moon festival: the third of the three major Spiritual Festivals, known variously as the Festival of the Christ, the Festival of Goodwill, the Festival of Humanity, and as World Invocation Day.

To begin let us center ourselves with outer stillness and inner poise. Just as if each one of us were passing through a doorway, we can figuratively step into a group mind that is focused and concentrated on the good of the whole. A group mind is greater than the sum of its parts. It is of a different order than the collection of all of the individual minds of those who are linking in meditation at this time.

Imagine stepping into a wide field of mind characterized by an unselfconscious, generous, abundant love of the whole — a group mind that loves all that is, appreciates all that is, cares about the evolutionary unfolding of all that is. This is the group mind that reflects and stands in the aura of the mind that is in Christ. It is both sensitive to the needs of humanity, as seen in the light of the soul, and sensitive to higher impressions.

Right now in the differentiated world of watches and clocks, we are a little under 11 hours from the moment of the full moon. Yet from the perspective of the group mind it is more accurate to think that we are participating in a rhythmic flow of energies — where the mind and heart of humanity is intimately linked with the Greater Mind that stands outside of time and space.

And now let us pause — imaginatively entering into this field of the group loving mind; imaginatively stepping beyond the thought forms of duality which make the worlds of soul and incarnated personality appear to be separate and divided — and imaginatively finding ourselves on the periphery of the ashram. After a moment let us together sound the Great Invocation, this time using the adapted version as a symbol that we stand with humanity as a whole when we sound this word of power. As trained esotericists, with a background in the teachings, it is right and appropriate that we mainly use the original version of the Great Invocation, fully understanding that the word 'men' refers to all human beings — and this is the version that we will use at the conclusion of the meditation. Yet as a symbol of our standing in solidarity with humanity as a whole it is also right that we respect the new language emerging from the world of human thinking and doing in response to the arising of the feminine principle. Choosing to change the phrase 'minds of men' to 'human minds' and so on is such a simple thing to do, yet it affirms that while the duality of male and female necessarily and rightly remains a fundamental part of what it is to be human, the dominant spirit of the masculine energy is bending and becoming more gentle in response to the arising of the feminine energy of the heart — through history, through the substance of our lives, a new fusion is taking place. The switch from 'Christ' to 'Coming One' affirms that the One who is expected, known by many as the Christ, is not the Christ of a particular religion — but the Christ universal, the anonymous Christ expected under different names by different cultures and faiths.

World Invocation Day is being observed today. So as we sound the Great Invocation, in its adapted version, together now, we can imagine our call to the point of Light within the Mind of God, the point of Love within the Heart of God and the center where the Will of God is known being joined by the call of countless others around the world.

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into human minds.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into human hearts.
May the Coming One return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide all little human wills -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the human race
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

There is a story, a myth if you like, of ritualized events said to take place every year during the period of the Gemini full moon somewhere in a secret hidden region of Central Asia. The Christ, the living radiant Christ, stands with an assembly of Beings of Light — rather than beings from other planets this assembly is made up of the Communion of Saints and Wise Ones that is honored by all faiths and spiritual traditions the Ancestors, Rishis and Arhats. Together, so the story goes, the Saints stand, supremely focused — absorbed in the Work that lies behind the transformation of humanity and the Restoration of the Mysteries.
The aura of the thinking and the being of the Christ and the Communion of Saints and Rishis is saturated with the essence of a blessing delivered by the Buddha during last month's Wesak Festival. For us, in our humanity, this blessing is of a potency that is almost beyond our comprehension. Yet one way we can imagine it is to think of how the blessing, when released, will affect human thinking. We don't need to be over-dramatic about this — perhaps the impact will not be clearly measureable or obvious; it may have a subtle, unseen effect. Imagine if the blessing, when it is released into the atmosphere of human thinking, has some dispelling effect on the veils of illusion that lead us to think from a perspective of separation. Imagine how a blessing like this might subtly disperse some of the emotional veils that lead incarnated humanity to experience life through distorted sensitivities, fears and worries. Imagine this blessing of the Buddha, as if it were a potent healing remedy specially designed in response to human need at this time.

The story tells us that the potency released by the Buddha is held by the Christ, the World Teacher, the Coming One, for a month. And so we can imagine that during the interlude between Taurus and Gemini, the atmosphere of the special region of Central Asia where these events are said to take place, is saturated with the essence of the Buddha's blessing.

And now, one month after the blessing was received, this potency is about to be released to the human community, the entire human community, by the Christ at the moment of the full moon, (5.26 AM tomorrow morning for us in London). Waves of healing energy will sweep through the collective etheric bodies of ethnic groups, nations, humanity as a whole. These waves will bring some element of release from the hold that separation and selfishness have over human thought. Imagine such a blessing bringing opportunities for cooperation to grow, for actions to build right relationship with the natural world, for goodwill to be expressed in professions, politics, arts and sciences.

It is said that in modern times, beginning in 1946 following the ending of the Second World War, the Christ's annual release of the blessing of the Buddha is accompanied by three distinct ceremonies taking place over three days — presumably the day before the full moon, the day of the full moon and the day after.

On each of the three days the story is that Christ sounds the essential sounds of what we know today as the Great Invocation — we are told that he does this first on his own, and we can imagine these sounds resonating through the assembly of Great Ones, gathered together in a hidden, secret valley somewhere in Central Asia. Imagine, for a moment, the quality of the Hierarchy's focused listening — imagine the sounds penetrating the ethers throughout the valley. After the Christ has sounded the Invocation, the assembled Hierarchy is said to repeat the mantram. We can imagine the rhythmic chanting of the group echoing throughout the valley.

Each of the three days of ceremonies is said to have a particular keynote. Today, the first day in the cycle, the note of Love in its hierarchical sense sounds through the ethers. This is different from what we think of as human love — it is love free from sentiment, emotion and personal emphasis … love that works on behalf of the whole and not in the interests of any group or individual. Our soul loves in this hierarchical way, as a result we in our own small way are able to comprehend such limitless love — and indeed as a meditating group we have a natural facility to think from this perspective — to love the whole, care about the well-being of the whole of humanity and the whole of the planetary life.

On the second day in this cycle of three days of ceremony, the full moon day, tomorrow, the note of Resurrection emanates through the aura of the thinking of Hierarchy. Resurrection emphasizes livingness, the living Christ and the "life more abundantly". And then on the third day of the cycle, Sunday, the keynote is one of Contact, of a closer relation between Christ and His people, between Hierarchy and humanity.

On the day of the full moon there is, for a moment, a synchronicity between the time that is measured by watches and clocks and the deep time measured by the coincidence of cycles, rhythms and energy flows on subtle levels. And it is at this sacred moment, we are told, that the ceremonial sounding of the Great Invocation first by the Christ and then by the assembled Rishis and Saints, is preceded by an ancient ritual.

At the exact moment of the full moon the Christ is said to bless the world - releasing the blessing given earlier by the Buddha. He then repeats the Buddha's last words or sermon followed by the eight Beatitudes of Jesus.

The words of the Beatitudes recorded by Matthew in his account of the Sermon on the Mount can be thought of as loose translations of the actual words. DK tell us that the translations in the New Testament are inadequate and misleading. Yet still, the words that we do have, call our attention to qualities of simplicity and transparency to be found within the human community — a simplicity that the sophisticated mind can easily fail to notice. The Beatitudes speak of natural human qualities, to be found in all communities when the personality carries itself with a measure of humility in the face of the richness of the soul. They remind us of the self-evident simplicity of goodwill, and of how incredibly important this quality is in the life of any community. The Beatitudes point towards ways of being human, naturally and without posturing, which reflect something of the pure sound of the soul. They are not a set of beliefs or doctrines — in fact they are the opposite of this. Just as the Buddha, in his last sermon, reminded his disciples to hold fast to the truth and be a lamp unto yourself — the Beatitudes speak of a personality that accepts its incompleteness as it approaches the kingdom of heaven that lies within. The Beatitudes remind us to look at humanity through fresh eyes, free of expectation about what a spiritualized humanity might look like and feel like.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Gemini is a sign of duality. From a higher perspective duality is an illusion. It is an ingrained way of thinking that is an inherited part of our human identity - it is what leads us to think of soul and personality as if they were fundamentally separate worlds. It is also what makes us think of any aspect of our web of relationships as being unconnected with the soul - for example our relationships with family, our relationships with our community - or the way in which we live our economic, political and cultural lives. The soul is immersed in group consciousness and absorbed in an awareness of the working out of the Plan. As personality's we tend to be immersed in our separate lives.

The Gemini keynote we will be using in our meditation, I recognize my other self and in the waning of that self, I grow and glow, invites us to look at this duality of soul and personality through the eyes of the soul. The 'I' that speaks in the keynote is the 'I' of the soul, and when we meditate we are invited to think from this perspective of the soul — recognizing that as the light of the personality dims and loses its strong sense of separation from life, so does the soul on its own plane grow and glow.

By providing the energetic potency of duality Gemini also provides the astrological conditions and circumstances in which we are destined to see through duality so that we experience life in its wholeness, its synthesis.

There is clearly much to ponder in our exploration of duality — recognizing that as we do so, as we ponder this theme, we are pondering a fundamental dynamic in our own nature — pondering the relationship between soul and personality - both in its universal sense and in the intimate way in which the universal presents itself to us — the duality of our own sense of self.
Too often we look at big themes like duality in judgmental terms — duality is bad, synthesis is good. This is what duality does — it is the nature of the dualistic mind. From the souls perspective all that is taking place is simply the Work and the working out of the Plan. The soul chooses to enter into a mind and a heart that dwells in separation. The soul's vehicle in the world is for lifetimes identified with separation, even perceiving the soul through the lens of the separated self (as judge, as idol, as distant dream). And all of this is necessary in order for the human mind and heart to finally see that the sense of separation is in fact a veil, a distortion of what is Real. And then, with a magical and beautiful turning of the wheel, the fully incarnated human being seeks out ways to enter freely into the stream of absorption in the Work itself. After the turning nothing matters more than the process of being a servant of the good of the whole, often in small, simple human ways.

Duality is a veil to be parted. Gemini, as one of the arms of the Mutable Cross, provides all the circumstances, the crises, the events that ultimately lead us to see beyond the veil, to see with clarity, to see as if the veil has been parted. Then, without losing any of our distinct sense of self we see soul and personality as one integrated whole. Duality collapses into synthesis. For the sense of synthesis to take root in the world of time and space, duality must be transformed.

Let's focus our attention on the human species as a whole and the call to divinity that rises ceaselessly from the human spirit. Generally this call, this invocation, is unconscious. Recognition of the reality of an inner realm of goodness, beauty and truth, the living vital voice of conscience, as distinct from the more complicated and uncertain realm of what we think of as our human identity is built into the DNA of our consciousness. We naturally yearn for a capacity to love, to experience beauty, to be at peace with ourselves and with others and to live in a world that is at peace. This is the substance of the invocation that rises ceaselessly from human beings. It is also deeply embedded in all the big issues facing us — how are we to act in accordance with our newly discovered vision of the wholeness and oneness of life? How are we to regulate our economic and political lives in such a way as to be appropriate to the mounting crises of climate change, growing inequality between wealth and poverty, and the tensions created by violent separative movements? We must regulate our lives in accordance with our better nature - everything tells us that we must follow the voice of our conscience — but we seem to lack the magnitude of will and vision needed to do this. And so we cry out, as a human family, to the forces at the core of our being — forces of Light, and Love and forces of Spiritual Power — descend to Earth, come to our aid — guide us in our actions, shine a light on our responsibilities and fill us with the energies of dynamic will needed by people of goodwill if they are to assume the leadership of human affairs.

On World Invocation Day, today, a day when Christ himself, along with the assembled Hierarchy, is said to sound the Great Invocation, our work in meditation is to absorb the unspoken invocation arising from the heart of humanity, to bring it into a focus of concentrated understanding. In the silence of our thoughts, let each one of us build a clear authentic understanding of humanity's need for Light, Love and Purpose at this time in our history. And then as we sound the Great Invocation let us send this invocation, like an arrow, directly to the Mind of God, the Heart of God and the centre where the will of God is known. A part of the beauty and the strength of the Great Invocation is that it brings together the simple cry of humanity (the cry from the poor in spirit, from the meek, from those who mourn) with the more targeted cry of those who have seen something of the vision of wholeness and who dream of serving that vision (the cry from those who hunger and thirst for righteousness) with the profoundly potent cry of those who are actively working to build the new (the cry from the peacemakers, and from those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake) — the Great Invocation blends all of these invocative cries from the human with the focused, concentrated appeal that issues from the world esoteric community (the pure in heart -the true esotericists). The Great Invocation is like a talisman that contains and blends all of these various sounds of invocation with the Invocation that pours forth ceaselessly from the Ashram. It truly acts as a bridge between the worlds — all with the purpose of restoring the Plan on Earth and the return into full appearance of the Christ, the Coming One whispered about in all the religious and spiritual traditions that have guided the peoples of the world in their journey through history.